Population Changes in Ottoman Anatolia during the 16th and 17th Centuries: The
"Demographic Crisis" Reconsidered
Author(s): Oktay Özel
Source: International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 36, No. 2 (May, 2004), pp.
183-205
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3880031
Accessed: 25-08-2017 13:06 UTC
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International Journal of Middle East Studies
Oktay Ozel
POPULATION CHANGES IN OTTOMAN
ANATOLIA DURING THE 16TH AND 17TH
CENTURIES: THE "DEMOGRAPHIC CRISIS"
RECONSIDERED
The historiography of the past two decades of the demographic history of 16th- and
17th-century Ottoman Anatolia has seen diverse and often conflicting arguments among
historians. Whether the Ottoman Empire witnessed "population pressure" in the 16th
century, and whether this was followed in the 17th century by a serious "demographic
crisis," considered by some historians as a "catastrophe," have constituted the central
theme of the debate. The roots of these issues can be traced as far back as the early
works of Omer Liitfi Barkan in the 1940s and 1950s.1 It appears that the disagreements
not only arose as a result of the different models of historical demography developed by
diverse schools of thought, but that they also owed much to the highly disputed nature
of the sources that provide the bulk of quantitative data for the demographic history of
the Ottoman Empire.2
When looking at the sources, one immediately realizes that the central part of the
debate falls into the realm of what is known as "defterology,"3 a sub-field of Ottoman
historiography covering works based on the series of Ottoman tax registers, mainly of
the 15th and 16th centuries (tahrir defters). Barkan was the first historian to present
these sources to the world of Ottomanists, in the 1940s.4 In his seminal article "Tarihi
Demografi Aragtirmalari ve Osmanli Tarihi," he presented the preliminary results of the
painstaking work of his team in istanbul on a whole series of defters of the 16th century.
Also discussing some methodological aspects of Ottoman demographic history and its
sources, Barkan pointed in that article to the main trends of population movements in
the Ottoman Empire in that century.
However, Barkan's pioneering works on Ottoman demographic history were not
lowed until the late 1960s,5 when some historians turned to the same sources for their
works on local history. The new explosion in the use of tahrir registers came from the
1970s onward, soon leading to the development of a separate field-defterology-with
its sophisticated methods, distinct terminology, and, inevitably, growing debates among
the specialists. Thus, Ottoman historical demographic studies were largely developed as
part of local-history research and focused primarily on the period between the mid-15th
and late 16th centuries.6 During the past two decades, however, the research and debates
Oktay Ozel is Assistant Professor in the Department of History, Bilkent University, FEASS, Bilkent 06800, Ankara, Turkey; e-mail: oozel@bilkent.edu.tr.have expanded to include the 17th century, basing themselves almost exclusively on
avartz and cizye registers, which until then had attracted little attention in demographic
studies.7Barkan's article suggested substantial growth in the population of the Ottoman Empire
in the 16th century, and subsequent case studies of various districts of the empire have
generally confirmed his findings." The tahrir registers of the period clearly show doubling
(in some cases even more) in the recorded tax-paying population, in urban and rural
areas, during the century.9 In his meticulous work published in 1972, Michael Cook
developed the argument that, especially in the second half of the 16th century in some
parts of rural Anatolia, the population grew to the extent that it exceeded the amount
of arable land available for cultivation. To him, this was an indication of "population
pressure."'0 This argument concurred in a sense with the view of Mustafa Akdag, who
years earlier had referred, though implicitly, to the population growth of the same period,
which, according to him, resulted in the increase in the number of peasants without land
((iftbozan levends). To Akdag, this was an important factor in the eventual breakdown
of the inner balance of the village economy and society, as well in the emergence of
the ensuing Celali rebellions and widespread terror in the Ottoman countryside at the
turn of the 17th century.11 The correlation that Akdag established between demographic,
socio-economic factors and political developments was later discussed-and to some
degree, criticized-by Halil Inalcik and Huricihan Islamoglu-Inan.12 The main criticism
of Akdag's argument focused on the point that the early-17th-century phenomenon of
the large-scale abandonment of villages could not be explained simply by economic and
demographic factors. Akdag's critics drew attention instead to what are called "pull"
factors, such as various opportunities that they thought the cities would have offered to
peasants, as well as to the peasants' desire to enter the military class, which would at
least guarantee them a steady income.13
At this point comes the important question: what were the factors triggering the
peasant masses to leave their villages at the end of the sixteenth century, becoming
the main source of manpower for the great Celali rebellions and the widespread terror
that was to devastate the Anatolian countryside throughout the 17th century?'4 As an
explanation, scholars have often referred to the increasing tax burden and the oppressive
attitudes of local officials toward peasants, both of which appear to have been a general
phenomenon of this period.'" Not rejecting the role of these factors, Akdag developed the
argument that the expanding rural population could no longer be absorbed by the village
economy, forcing many peasants to search for a living elsewhere. Inalclk, however,
while accepting to a certain extent the role of demographic pressure, puts an emphasis
on the desperate need of the Ottoman government for more soldiers using firearms during
the long and difficult years of war at the end of the 16th century. According to him, this
need resulted in the formation of the sekban and sarica troops, which would soon turn into
Celali brigands. This coincided with the peasants' desire to enjoy the privileged position
of the military class of that same period, even though the socio-economic position of the
members of the military was also deteriorating.'6
The final point of debate relates to 17th-century developments. A central theme is
whether or not one can speak of a "demographic crisis." The main discussion revolves
around the effects of the Celali rebellions and focuses on what is termed "depopulation,"
the extent and nature of the radical decrease in the recorded tax-paying population was
further developed by Bruce McGowan to the point of a "demographic catastrophe."17
McGowan's method and his somewhat controversial findings and interpretations in his
works on the Balkan lands, which were based nearly exclusively on the quantitative
evidence provided in avartz and cizye registers, were later criticized by Maria Todorova.'8
While addressing once more the disputed nature of these sources, Todorova used the same
figures with different criteria and centered her criticism on the misunderstanding and
misinterpretation of the data offered by these registers; thus, she came to an opposite
and no less controversial conclusion. She claimed that one could hardly speak even of a
considerable decrease in Ottoman population in the 17th century, let alone a demographic
catastrophe.
In the following article, I will re-evaluate the main issues in this debate in the light of
recent research, arguing that all were part of a complex historical phenomenon that cannot
be explained by reductionist, single-factor approaches and unfounded interpretations. I
will also emphasize that, although there are many black holes in Ottoman demographic
history, one can still reasonably speak of a general demographic crisis during the late
16th and early 17th centuries.
THE 16TH CENTURY: FROM POPULATION "PRESSURE"
TO CELALi REBELLIONS
In her study on the dynamics of agricultural production, population growth, and urban
development in 16th century north-central Anatolia, islamoglu-inan, referring to the case
of the Tokat and 4orum districts, argues that population growth in the Ottoman Empire
never reached the point of "pressure" that was described by Michael Cook.19
Inan's view appears to have found a certain degree of support, becoming an argument
often referred to by other Ottomanists.20 In elaborating her argument, islamoglu-inan
suggests that the fragmentation of reaya Ciftliks, which is clearly revealed by the tahrir
registers, did not necessarily mean that the peasants became landless. She further argues
that the peasants in question reacted to the worsening conditions in terms of the imbalance
between population growth and the insufficient amount of arable land by (1) intensifying
cultivation; (2) reclaiming unused and forested lands to cultivation; and (3) changing crop
patterns, or rationalizing agriculture, and altering consumption habits.2' She then claims
that the population growth did not reach the extent of eventually forcing the peasants
to leave their lands. The great increase in population in this respect is explained by
the possibility of internal or westward migration and the sedentarization of pastoralist
nomads.22 The increase in the number of recorded caba (landless married men) and
miicerred (landless unmarried men) similarly is accounted for by the possibility of an
increased demand for wage labor in the face of intense cultivation.23
As seen in this argument, islamoglu-Inan suggests, first, that the peasant movements
in Anatolia in the second half of the 16th century were of a migratory nature; and second,
that the migration to cities during this period was in fact the result of the "preference" of
peasants, especially younger ones, who, under the "drudgery of work" in the Anatolian
countryside, chose to enter into the service of provincial administrators as irregular
soldiers or join medreses (theology schools) as students.24 The migration of peasants
therefore should not necessarily be seen as evidence of a subsistence crisis or of the
inability on the part of the village economy to absorb an increasing population.25 In other
words, according to Islamoglu-Inan, we cannot speak here of demographic pressure. In
saying this, however, she fails to note that the phenomenon of intensifying cultivation
and shifting crop patterns, which was seen during the second half of the 16th century in
many other parts of Anatolia, can also be linked to economic and demographic pressure,
as well as to developing markets and monetary changes.26 However, the main argument
of her work is not the analysis of certain historical phenomena that she had previously
accepted. Instead of dwelling on the subsistence crisis, the apparent drop in per-capita
production vis-ai-vis a considerable rise in prices, the fragmentation of peasant farms,
and the increasing number of landless peasants,27 she focuses on how population growth
affected the peasant economy and relationships in the Ottoman countryside.28 While
analyzing the reasons behind the migration from rural to urban areas in Anatolia, she tries
to minimize the extent of demographic factors behind this movement, thus rejecting the
thesis of population pressure. In doing this, she seems to overemphasize the possibilities
mentioned earlier instead of attempting a closer analysis of the evidence provided by the
sources she is using.29
The findings of recent studies of the neighboring north-central Anatolian districts of
Canik and Amasya, as well as Islamoglu-Inan's own sources on the regions of Corum
and Tokat, appear to support the argument for considerable demographic pressure, as
suggested by Cook particularly for north-central Anatolia during the second half of the
16th century.30 In that region, for example, the fragmentation of peasant farms reached
high levels, and the ever-shrinking plots of land recorded in the name of certain
ant households (hane) began increasingly to be cultivated by more adult peasants or
households.3' In addition, the number of landless peasant households (caba [-bennak])
increased, for example in the Amasya district to nearly 40 percent of the total recorded
households; moreover, this figure does not include unmarried adult men, who constitute
nearly half of the recorded male population.32
Another point further clarifies the picture. In her study, Islamoglu-Inan wrongly
terprets the term "caba" in the tahrir registers as "landless unmarried man," whereas it
clearly refers to "landless married man."33 As a consequence, the proportion of unmarried
men in the total adult male population-for example, in the region of Tokat between
1554 and 1576-appears to reach 70 percent,34 while in other parts of Anatolia in the
same period it varies between 20 percent and 40 percent.35 This high percentage, which
is difficult to explain, drops to about 45 percent when the term caba is taken in its
correct meaning as clearly defined in the law codes (kanunname) of the province in
question.36 This still significant rise in the number of unmarried men is paralleled by a
similar level of decrease in the number of landless married men in the very same district
during the same period. In other words, the proportion of married men in the total adult
male population in the Tokat countryside in 1574 shows a decrease of nearly 30 percent
compared with the situation twenty years earlier, while the number of unmarried men
increased even more in the same period.37 How can this be interpreted? One possible
explanation could be that, during this period, young adult men found it increasingly hard
to get married under the worsening economic conditions, thus expanding the unmarried
adult male population.
The remarkable increase in the proportion of both landless and unmarried adult men
in the central lands of the province of Rum in Anatolia during the second half of the
16th century is also observable in the Amasya and Canik districts.38 According to the
tahrir registers for these districts, the proportion of miicerreds to the total adult male
population in 1576 was 45.8 percent in Canik and 44.8 percent in Amasya. Similarly,
the proportion of the landless married men (caba) to the same total again in 1576 was
35 percent in Canik and 31.7 percent in Amasya. In other words, the combined proportion
of unmarried and landless married men among the total adult male population at the turn
of the last quarter of the 16th century was around 80 percent in the Canik region and
around 76 percent in Amasya.39 Given the assumption that the proportion of young
people (younger than fifteen years) among the population as a whole was from one-third
to one-half in pre-industrial societies,40 these proportions of unmarried men in
central Anatolia may be seen as not significantly abnormal. But when taken together
with the number of landless married man, this obviously points to a serious imbalance
between the population and the economy. This in turn also lends support to the notion,
first suggested by Mustafa Akdag and later cautiously mentioned as a possibility by
Cook along with Leyla Erder and Suraiya Faroqhi, of serious difficulties in marriage
conditions (late marriage or non-marriage) in the Anatolian countryside.41
Having said this, one observes in some cases a different picture of the changing
proportions of different sectors of rural society in 16th-century Anatolia. In the western
Anatolian district of Lazlkiyye (Denizli) between the 1520s and the 1570s, for example,
we see an extraordinary increase (159.59%) in the number of households holding the
minimum amount of land (a bennak, or less than half a farmstead), while the proportion of
those holding a full farmstead or half a farmstead decreased significantly (to 51.10% and
30.05%, respectively). Interestingly, this was accompanied by a drastic fall in the number
of unmarried adult men (75.77%).42 In this case, it seems that the observed population
growth followed a different path. While the young unmarried men increasingly left their
villages for brigandage or to fill the medreses as "students" (suhte) by mid-century43
(which meant that they went unrecorded in their villages), the increasing number of
peasant households who stayed in their villages found less and less land to cultivate. Such
fluctuations in the composition of the rural population of Anatolia in the second half of
the 16th century indicate a situation that cannot be seen as "normal." Behind all these
developments, one clearly observes demographic pressure, although its consequences
varied from region to region.
There is further evidence that points to such pressure. Leaving aside the general
population growth that is evident particularly from the second quarter of the century
onward, one observes signs of dense settlement particulary in the lowlands and on
high plateaus suitable for cultivation. Some plots of land hitherto uninhabited or
used, the mezraas, were either reactivated as supplementary arable land for peasants of
nearby villages or were increasingly turned into permanent settlements during the 16th
century.44 One can add to this the increasing cases of lands newly opened to cultivation
either from marginal lands or through the clearance of woodland.45 Parallel to this, there
were instances of semi-nomadic Turkoman groups establishing permanent settlements
(etrakiye villages) in the mountain fringes, where they appear to have engaged in
scale agriculture and animal husbandry.46 Despite the silence of the registers as to the
cause of such cases, this clearly shows that arable land was expanding, probably at the
expense of pasture land, which was essential to the pastoral life and economy. It seems
16th century was never to be reached again, even by the turn of the 20th century.47 In
addition, the urban population of this period witnessed a considerable increase. There
are signs that big cities as regional centers, such as Tokat, received migrants of rural
origin, most of whom are likely to have been the landless and unmarried peasants from
the countryside mentioned earlier. It is highly probable that such cities continued to
attract these people throughout the second half of the 16th century,48 despite the efforts
of the central government to prevent such population movements with strict rules and
regulations developed to maintain the "pre-determined boundaries" of the social and
economic order in both rural and urban areas.49 I think all this points to the fact that
Anatolia-at least, in the north-central parts-was under pressure from rapid population
growth in the second half of the 16th century. It also indicates an apparent subsistence
crisis in the Anatolian countryside. The demographic pressure therefore appears to be a
historical reality in 16th-century Anatolia; it cannot simply be ruled out as a hypothetical
claim. It seems to have been a phenomenon that had diverse effects throughout society,
including on urban dwellers and nomads, at least in some parts of Anatolia in the second
half of the 16th century.50
In this context, it is not unreasonable to view these demographic changes as a
cant factor in the spread of the great Celali rebellions, and especially in the continuous
terror in the Ottoman countryside that began in the late 16th century and escalated in the
early 17th century. It also seems more than a coincidence that the human source of this
general devastation was largely generated by the changing conditions in the Ottoman
countryside in the late 16th century. Population pressure in this respect should seriously
be considered. This important subject of discussion deserves a separate study. However,
it should be pointed out here that the "pull" factors suggested by Islamoglu-Inan and
Inalcik, such as the opportunities offered by cities to the villagers in difficulty, the urgent
need of the Ottoman government for more soldiers using firearms, and the employment
of already rootless peasants to this end, no doubt possess a certain degree of validity.
It is evident that the government's crucial decision to resort to this destabilized human
element as a short-term solution to its military needs led to the dangerous mobilization
of this "floating mass" in the Anatolian countryside at the turn of the 17th century.
However, at this point it is perhaps more important to emphasize the very presence of
such a peasant mass in itself. Many of these peasants-landless, unmarried, and living
at the limits of survival while searching for a better life elsewhere-were open, despite
restrictions, to the attractiveness of outside factors.5"
Finally, it is also evident that this mass of peasants, the "surplus population,"52 who
had already begun to leave their villages in large numbers more visibly from the 1580s
onward, were not only attracted by such "pull" factors; they also resorted to "other" ways
of life, including illegal activities such as brigandage.53 A cursory look at the increasing
records of such cases in miihimme registers of the period bears witness to this. It is
highly likely that the "tiifenkendaz" groups (those who used firearms) that the Ottoman
government employed were these levends of peasant origin, whose numbers appear to
have been constantly increasing in the Anatolian countryside in the last quarter of the
century, or even earlier, rather than being peasants who, despite all difficulties, stayed in
their villages to continue their modest life. We do not yet know, however, the real extent
of the crucial phenomenon of what can be termed "levendization" in rural Anatolia,
which seems to have developed more toward independent brigandage or employment as
sekban and sarica in the retinues of provincial administrators,54 rather than intermittent
employment as mercenaries by the government. It is therefore highly unlikely that the
peasants' leaving their villages (giftbozanhk), which had intensified prior to the great
Celali devastation, can be fully explained by the "pull" factors without knowing the
real extent of this levendization and without knowing how many of these groups were
employed by the government as mercenary troops and how often.55 It is also important
in this context to keep in mind the critical difference between the peasants' hopes and
search for a better life in cities and the despair that hopelessly scattered them in search
of other options such as brigandage. It can even be suggested that, compared with other
opportunities in cities, brigandage per se was a more attractive option for them.
THE 17TH CENTURY: A "DEMOGRAPHIC CRISIS"?
While the rapid population growth of the 16th century seems well established, research
on various parts of the empire, including Anatolia, the Balkans, and Syria, points to
an opposite phenomenon from the turn of the 17th century onward: a serious fall in
population.56 Signs of the change in this direction are observed from the late 16th century
onward, becoming marked in the 17th century.57 The main argument among scholars
dealing with the subject has focussed primarily on the extent of the decrease in population.
Historians working on this period refer again to the disputed nature of the sources, on the
one hand, and the problem of interpretation, on the other. How reliable are the sources of
the 17th century-namely, the avariz and cizye registers, which provide only quantitative
data for demographic developments? How can the picture revealed by these sources be
interpreted? Some go further to ask whether there was any real decrease in population,
while others present the decrease as an obvious historical fact, speaking of a serious
"crisis" or even a "catastrophe."
As mentioned earlier, McGowan developed the thesis of "demographic catastrophe"
on the basis of his examination of these registers58 belonging to the Balkan provinces. He
starts by observing a dramatic drop in the taxable population recorded in these registers
and concludes that this was a manifestation of a serious demographic crisis that in some
cases reached catastrophic levels. According to McGowan, this was mainly the result
of (1) the long wars and chaotic events of the. period; and (2) the dispossession of the
peasantry under an increasing tax burden and exploitation. However, he does not rule
out the possible effects of other factors that may well have contributed to this result,
such as famine, typhus or plague epidemics, or the climatic change in Europe which
is generally called the "Little Ice Age." Some historians claim that this climate change
manifested itself in the Ottoman Empire as increasing rainfall and unseasonable freezing
and occurrence of heavy snow.59
Criticizing the approaches that tend to analyze the issue within the disputed context
of the "17th century crisis," Todorova, maintains that the changes that took place in
the demographic structure of the Ottoman Empire during the 17th century cannot be
understood in such a framework.60 She argues that demographic phenomena have their
own distinct rules and chronology of development and that they should not be evaluated
in terms of conjunctural economic and political developments.61 Therefore, it would
be erroneous to link the population growth of the 16th century necessarily to social
progress, and adverse development to the so-called crisis. Referring to McGowan's
argument, Todorova raises a question: leaving aside the methodological problem of
whether the population decrease can be considered a sign of demographic crisis, did
such a population fall in fact occur in the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century? She
then goes on to question the extent to which the drop in population that is observed
in the available sources represented a real loss. To Todorova, this drop can well be
accounted for by certain historical developments of the period, such as migration and
re-nomadization, large-scale abandonment of villages by peasants, or their evasion of
registration. Similarly, the apparent fall she refers to in the non-Muslim population of
the Balkans in this context may be seen to be a false decrease.62
The first point to be emphasized in this part of the debate is that the problem of
interpretation of the relevant data, contained in the sources used by both McGowan
and Todorova, is valid for other similar material, including the tahrir registers. There
is no doubt that every single piece of research requires the utmost attention in this
respect. It should be remembered, however, that the collections of sources employed
in this discussion belong to two periods-the 1530s and the 1700s-neither of which
includes any part of the 17th century. The degree to which the nearly 170-year-gap
between these dates allows us to analyze the long-term demographic developments is
highly questionable. Furthermore, this line of argument clearly says nothing about the
short-term fluctuations that took place in the Ottoman Empire in the late 16th and first
half of the 17th century. To develop a more meaningful and sound argument, therefore,
one should make use of the same kind of sources for these periods or search for other
sources available in the Ottoman archives.
Recent research has revealed the importance of a new series of archival sources. The
most significant perhaps are the detailed avariz registers, which appear to have been
compiled for the first time for various parts of the empire in the first quarter of the
17th century and continued during the rest of the century. These are different from the
summary-type avariz-hane registers used by McGowan. Prepared in the same way as
the tahrir registers of the previous century, the detailed avariz registers enumerate the
entire tax-paying population as "nefer" (adult men, married and unmarried) in various
categories, as well as the members of the ruling class (askeri) who in one way or another
held possessions liable to avariz taxes or extraordinary levies, which were turned into
regular annual payments sometime around the turn of the 17th century.63
The few studies undertaken on these sources in comparison with the tahrir registers of
the late 16th century point to a radical decrease of around 80 percent in the recorded
paying population of the north-central Anatolian districts of Amasya, Canik, and Bozok
in the first half of the 17th century, with a corresponding figure of around 70 percent in
the district of Tokat (See Table 1).64 In the case of Amasya, 30-40 percent of the villages
that existed in the 1570s appear by the 1640s to have been abandoned or ruined. A
similar pattern, though less dramatic, is observable in the neighboring districts of Canik,
Bozok, and Tokat (See Table 2)."6 A significant portion of the villages in the district
of Amasya, some of which seem to have disappeared, were those that emerged in the
period of the 16th-century expansion with relatively small numbers of inhabitants either
on fertile plains or high plateaus.66 This was accompanied by the disappearance of the
etrakiye villages of the mountain fringes. Similarly, there is evidence that the Turkomans
of the Bozok region of central Anatolia, who had gradually adopted a sedentary lifestyle
during the 16th century, had largely returned to nomadic life by the mid-17th century.67
TABLE 1 Changes in tax-paying population between the 1560s and the
1640s (in nefer)a
1560-70s 1640s % Urban Tokat 3,868 (1,258) 3,858 +0.3 Amasya 2,835 (1,069) 1,736 -38.8 Merzifon 1,783 (770) 957 (33) -46.3Gtimtii 1,176 (524) 317 (30) -73.1
Lddik 833 (248) 260 -68.8 Samsun 520 (229) 134 (58) -74.2Gedegrab 97 (42) 739 +66.1
Harput 1,965 (403) 348 -82.3
RuralAmasya (kaza) 28,449 (12,923) 6,068 (833) -78.7
Samsun (sancak)c 39,609 (18,063) 6,617 (1,181) -83.3 Bozok (sancak) 41,484 (22,780) 4,621 (252) -88.9Harput (kaza) 15,379 (4,147) 1,476 (615) -90.4
aFigures in parentheses indicate the numbers of unmarried adult men already included in the totals. To make the comparison meaningful, I have excluded a number of askeris recorded in the 1642 register. Therefore, the figures in both dates present tax-paying reaya
only.
bThe exceptional increase in the population of the town of Gedegra is apparently due to its top-hill location. With its natural protection, it must have served as a perfect refuge for the displaced populace from nearby settlements on the low plains.
CThe kazas of Unye and Terme, which do not appear in the 1640s registers, are not included in these totals. Also note that the kaza of Arim in the 1640s corresponds to roughly half of its area in 1570. The other parts of the kaza were divided in the 1640s into new kazas, which do not appear in the registers. This is also the case for the figures given in Table 2.
It should not be forgotten that this was a period with a number of extraordinary
historical developments, mainly connected with the Celali depredations. It is the period
in which the sources increasingly speak of frequent "Celali invasions" and of members
of the provincial military-administrative class (ehl-i irf) roaming the countryside with
their retinues of hundreds of horsemen under the pretext of inspection. At the mercy
of the Celali bands and these brigand officials, the peasants dispersed ("perakende ve
TABLE 2 Decrease in the number of villages between the 1570s
and the 1640sa
District 1570s 1640s %
Amasya (kaza) 372 228 -38.70
Canik (sancak) 509 452 -11.19 Bozok (sancak) 629 548 -12.87aNote that the numbers for the 1640s include the "new" villages appearing only in the survey of this date, although some of them may have been the old settlements with new
perigan olub"), leaving their villages en masse ("celdy-i vatan idiib"). City dwellers
were not immune to such attacks, either. Contemporary sources unanimously refer to
the famines frequently witnessed in the countryside and to the enormous damage they
caused to the state treasury ( "memlekete kitlik, devlet hazinesine kiilli zarar gelmegle ").68
Furthermore, the combined effects of these events on rural structure and village life in
the Anatolian countryside are likely to have had an adverse effect on the birthrate, the
real extent of which may never be known because of the shortcomings of the available
sources. To this should be added the increase in the death rate under conditions of
stant and widespread Celali terror and wars, which would have affected not only adult
men, but also women, children, and elderly people-that is, those who were most
nerable to human and natural calamities.69 All of these taken together with the possibility
of the phenomenon of late marriage turning into one of temporary non-marriage point
to extraordinary historical circumstances. Compared with the general conditions of the
16th century that allowed, mainly through military expansion, the growing population to
integrate into an expanding system, the 17th century was a period of shrinking military
and economic resources that created the conditions for a general crisis and depredation.
Contrary to Todorova's argument, therefore, it is not mere speculation to speak of a
general demographic crisis-at least, for Ottoman Anatolia in the first half of the 17th
century.
Whether such a crisis was a general phenomenon in the entire empire in this
and, if it was, whether there was any degree of recovery during and after the time
of Kiprtillis in the later part of the century-can be shown only through further case
studies.70 The question of the extent of the Celali terror that appears to have continued
throughout the 17th century in different parts of the empire should be kept in mind
when examining the problem. Particularly important in this respect is the extent of the
terror's destructive effects on rural structure," given the facts that the rural economy, both
agricultural and pastoral, was the main source of wealth for the imperial treasury and
that the complex relationships of revenue distribution, which constituted the backbone
of the whole military and administrative structure of the empire, were based mainly on
the stability of both rural life and the economy. Also crucial is the frequency of natural
disasters such as famine, epidemics, drought, earthquakes, floods, and heavy snow in the
Ottoman Empire during the 17th century.72
It should immediately be pointed out, however, that the apparent decrease in the
recorded tax-paying population in the early- 17th-century registers employed in this
study does not necessarily imply that 70-80 percent of the rural population simply
died as a result of wars or natural or human-made disasters. A significant proportion
of this "loss" in population may well be accounted for by many peasants' forming the
human source of the hundreds of Celali bands that were still active in the Anatolian
countryside at the time of the surveys in the 1640s. Alternatively, some peasants may
simply have evaded registration, thus going unrecorded in the registers. One can only
speculate about this point. Nevertheless, the early-17th-century loss of population as
reflected in the contemporary survey registers and interpreted in this study is too high to
be explained only by such possibilities. Even if these are taken into account, it is more
than likely that the picture presented by these registers still remains the most significant
evidence for a serious demographic fluctuation in Ottoman Anatolia at the turn of the 17th
century.73THE OTTOMON CASE IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE
Let us turn at this point to the larger context of the nature of these demographic
opments. Inalclk considers the case of late-16th-century overpopulation in
or, as Cook puts it, the apparent imbalance between economic resources and the
creasing population-to be an overall "population crisis" with social and economic
complications.74 Considering Carlo Cipolla's assertion that, in pre-industrial agrarian
societies, fluctuations such as sudden and drastic falls in population could be expected
when population growth exceeded certain limits,7 it seems quite reasonable to approach
the extraordinary demographic movements, whether rapid growth or drastic fall, as two
phases of a general crisis.76 Approached from this perspective, the population pressure
that Cook suggests for the second half of the 16th century can also be seen as an indication
of such a crisis in Ottoman Anatolia. In the light of the findings of recent research,
the period from the mid-16th to mid-17th century, with its up-and-down swings, may
therefore be considered a period of general crisis in the demographic history of the
Ottoman Empire-a crisis whose first stage manifested itself in the form of "pressure"
(or overpopulation), and the second stage in the form of "implosion" (or depopulation).
If true, does this take us back to the neo-Malthusian "population cycle," which has long
constituted the central theme of scholarly debates in demographic studies?77
The scope of the present study is limited to the re-interpretation of old evidence in
the light of new evidence concerning the 16th- and 17th-century population changes
in Ottoman Anatolia in the hope that it will contribute to the revival of the debate
among specialists. Although taking the present examination beyond this point deserves
a separate study, it is not totally without benefit to make some brief remarks on these
questions to place the Ottoman case in the wider theoretical context of the worldwide
population movements in the early modern period.
The role of population changes in history has been a subject for both demographers and
historians since the publication of the classic works of T. R. Malthus and David Ricardo.78
Based on their arguments about the nature of population movements in history and the
relationships between population and the economy, which have often been regarded as
too mechanical to comprehend the complex nature of historical development and explain
its diversity, there emerged in the 20th century many revisionist attempts to modify or
refine the Malthusian and Ricardian demographic "laws" or to refute them categorically.
The resultant debates among scholars have thus evolved around what is termed the
"neo-Malthusian" approach, among whose principal defenders were historians such as
Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie and M. M. Postan.79 It was mainly on their works concerning
late medieval and early modern France and England that Robert Brenner launched in
the late-1970s a counter-argument rejecting the primary role of demographic changes
in the rise of European capitalism in general and in income distribution in particular.
However, he never categorically denied the importance of what he referred to as
"demo-economic" trends in long-term historical developments.80 What he sharply
criticized was the mechanistic application to history of demographic models, which
have almost been exclusively associated with Malthus via Le Roy Ladurie in particular.
With the participation of other specialists, the "Brenner debate" led to a productive
discussion among historians that was to have a strong influence on later historiography.
demographic-economic processes as the main factors in historical change toward a
greater focus on the political-distributional level, resulting finally in bringing the "state"
back into historical analysis in the 1980s and 1990s.81
Concurrently-or, perhaps, as a reaction to this tendency-some scholars, the most
prominent of whom was Jack Goldstone, returned to the primary role of
ecological changes in the development of history.82 According to Goldstone, population
in principle moved independently for reasons exogenous even to the economy and played
a central role particularly in the political crises of early modern societies.83 Goldstone's
"post-Malthusian" approach once more brought attention to the role of demographic
factors in history on the widest scale across time and space, covering areas stretching
from Europe to China and in the period from the late medieval ages to the 20th century.
All of these debates have found echoes in Ottoman historiography. Islamoglu-Inan,
who wrote in the 1980s mainly about the agrarian economy of Anatolia, also touched
on population changes in Anatolia. She closely followed the current discussions
ing around Wallerstein's "capitalist world system" approach along with the Brenner
debate, with certain reservations toward both based to some extent on the works of Ester
Boserup.84 I have already discussed islamoglu-Inan's argument, which places heavy
emphasis on the determining power of the state and its role in socio-political and
butional processes in the Ottoman Empire.
Although I agree with her in rejecting any deterministic mechanical and reductionist
single-factor approach in history, her somewhat eclectic theoretical approach
estimates the precarious balance between population and resources that were in fact
closely connected in late medieval and early modem agrarian societies. I also agree with
her that the roots of population changes are not necessarily internal to the agricultural
economy. But this does not mean that demographic changes-rises or falls-have no
negative effects or do not put strain on the economy in general and state finance in
particular. Indeed, Goldstone's entire work convincingly shows how population changes
that occurred often syncronously across the world during the 16th and 17th centuries
led to eventual state breakdowns, following strikingly similar patterns, albeit in different
forms.Goldstone himself included the Ottoman Empire in his comprehensive study of "state
breakdowns" in the early modern period. His post-Malthusian demographic approach,
which in the main argues that "revolutions are the result of multiple problems, arising
from long-term shifts in the balance of population and resources,"85 deserves closer
attention because of its direct relevance to the central argument of the present study.
Goldstone develops the argument that the more or less simultaneous state breakdowns
during the late 16th and 17th centuries in Europe, the Ottoman Empire, and China
were the best examples of the recurrent waves of similar events in history. All of these
originated mainly from a periodic, cyclic imbalance between population growth and
inflexible economic and political systems.86 In this respect, Goldstone's treatment of
the Ottoman case places the price increases of the late 16th century, the crisis in state
finance, and the widespread Celali rebellions into this worldwide context. In doing this,
he refers to old evidence concerning the socio-economic and political manifestations of
this period of crisis, such as the increase in the number and overall proportion of young
unmarried men in the population, the fragmentation of peasant farms, and the increase
livelihood outside their villages. All of this eventually contributed directly to the Celali
uprisings.
The new findings presented in this study once more confirm and consolidate this
ture. However, a more important point in Goldstone's argument is that population growth
has a non-linear or disproportionate effect particularly on marginal groups-in our case,
the unmarried men and the landless.87 Using Goldstone's own words, "[I]ncreases in total
population generally produce a much larger increase" in these marginal populations "...
than in the population as a whole.""88
Leaving aside Goldstone's other arguments, which obviously open new horizons for
future comparative studies in Ottoman history, this point alone is particularly important
for the argument of the present study. If his argument is correct, the figures presented in
this study become more significant because they show a substantial increase in the size
of the sectors of rural society that were gradually "marginalized" under the conditions
of population growth. If so, one might expect even further increases in these populations
in the last quarter of the 16th century-increases that cannot be observed because we
have no surveys available for this period. When the landless and unmarried young men
are taken together with the discontented timar holders, who had also lost much of their
income under the inflationary trend that went hand in hand with population growth, it is
not a coincidence that these were the very groups that formed the main source of Celali
bands and rebel armies in the 17th century. One can further assume that the large-scale
destruction caused in the Anatolian countryside by the Celali terror, coupled with wars,
resulted in what Brenner describes as the "disruption of production leading to further
demographic decline, rather than a return to equilibrium."89
This last point, which is perhaps Brenner's only contribution to the neo-Malthusian
debate, although he developed it as a counter-argument to the theory of Malthusian
adjustment, relates to the very point at which we started to evaluate the Ottoman case in
a wider historical context. Implicit in my line of argument throughout this study is that the
Malthusian approach still has merit in population studies and offers much, particularly in
terms of the nature of demographic changes in essentially agrarian societies. One should
also remember the remarks of another prominent historian, Guy Bois, that knowledge of
demographic changes is essential to understanding the development of societies in which
small-scale family production is the basic economic unit and in which "reproduction takes
place on that scale according to an economic/demographic process."90 As such a society,
the Ottoman peasantry was vulnerable to demographic changes, and the developments
in 16th- and 17th-century rural Anatolia can be re-interpreted in this context.91 Does this
take us to demographic and economic determinism? Certainly not. No reasonable mind
can suggest such a deterministic approach after the decades-long debates over the
plex nature of historical development. What this may mean instead is that demographic
analysis can be further developed and refined to widen our perspective, as impressively
exemplified by the works of scholars such as Cipolla, Goldstone, and many others.
CONCLUSIONWhatever the fruits of discussing the problem at such a theoretical level, in the case of
Anatolia it is perhaps more important to bear in mind the geographical dimension of
the population changes in the late-16th- and early-17th-century Ottoman Empire. The
crucial question is how representative the cases of demographic pressure in Anatolia
described here were as far as the whole empire was concerned.92 Furthermore, one
may ask the same question for Anatolia only, considering the fact that in some parts
of Anatolia the population seems to have remained within reasonable limits,93 although
substantial growth in the 16th century was a general phenomenon throughout the Empire.
It is therefore imperative to pay attention to voices that emphasize regional differences
in terms of demographic changes-differences that depended largely on the quality
and quantity of the land, climatic conditions, economic opportunities, and, as Karen
Barkey rightly suggests, the patron-client relations at the local level and in the empire
in general.94
It is also clear that population growth does not necessarily or automatically mean
"pressure." What this study shows in this respect is that one can speak of such pressure
in at least some parts of the empire-in this case, the north-central Anatolian province
of Rum. Whether the apparent rise in population resulted in similar pressure elsewhere
in Anatolia or throughout the empire toward the end of the century remains a question.
Nevertheless, this study has also pointed out that the Celali rebellions and widespread
terror in the Anatolian countryside were closely related to the demographic growth of
the 16th century.
At this point, it is important to return to the sources, the nature and interpretation of
which constitute an significant part of the debate. There is no doubt that the
sive series of imperial tahrir, avariz, and cizye registers of various kinds (separate evkaf
tahrir registers included), which offer the only quantitative data for demographic studies,
have been, and still are, the principle sources. But it has increasingly become apparent
that the qualitative information that these sources provide is equally important in terms,
for example, of settlement patterns, and abandoned or lost settlements. Miihimme and
sicil collections available for the period in question, as well as other archival materials
such as the account books of certain foundations (vakifs),95 often provide useful and
sometimes extremely important insights into the complex historical developments of the
time. Only through cross-examination can one make a reasonably convincing evaluation
of demographic changes in general, and of the degree of reliability of the figures given in
the sources in particular. Nevertheless, the varying roles of factors affecting the
death ratio remain an important issue that is unlikely, perhaps impossible, to clarify given
the shortcomings of the present sources.96 However discouraging repeated mention of
such methodological problems and the questioning of the reliability and shortcomings
of the source material may be, there seem to be no easy solutions to the problems of
Ottoman demographic history of the period in question.
NOTES
Author's note: The initial version of this article was presented at the Eighth International Congress of Economic and Social History of Turkey, Bursa, 18-22 June 1998. The author thanks Halil Inalcik, Rifa'at Ali Abou El-Haj, Paul Latimer, Mehmet Oz, Fikret Yilmaz, and anonymous IJMES reviewers, as well as its editors, for their valuable suggestions.
1See esp. 0. L. Barkan, "Ttirkiye'de Imparatorluk Devirlerinin Biiytik Ntifus ve Arazi Tahrirleri ve Hakana Mahsus Istatistik Defterleri," istanbul iniversitesi iktisat Fakiiltesi Mecmuasl 2, 1 (1940): 20-59: ibid., 2, 2 (1941): 214-47; idem, "Tarihi Demografi Aragtlrmalanr ve Osmanhl Tarihi," Tiirkiyat Mecmuast 10 (1951-53): 1-27; idem, "Essai sur les donnees statistiques des registres de recensement dans
l'Empire Ottoman aux XVe et XVIe siecles," Journal of the Social and Economic History of the Orient 1, 1 (1958): 9-36. See also his later works on the subject: "Research on the Ottoman Fiscal Surveys," in Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East, ed. Michael A. Cook (London: Oxford University Press,
1970), 163-71; and "894 (1488/1489) Yili Cizyesinin Tahsilatlna Ait Muhasebe Bilangolari," Belgeler 1, 1 (1964): 1-117.
2For a detailed re-evaluation of the related literature within the larger framework of the Braudelian Mediterranean world, see Halil Inalcik, "The Impact of the Annales School on Ottoman Studies and New Findings," Review 1, 3-4 (1978): 69-96.
3The historian who first used the term "defterology" was Heath Lowry, himself being a prominent ogist. For his major monographical works, as well as his discussion of some methodological problems involved in the use of these defters, see his Trabzon ?ehrinin Islamlayma ve Tiirklegmesi, 1461-1583 (Istanbul: Bogaziqi Universitesi Yaylnlan, 198 1); idem, Studies in Defterology, Ottoman Society in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth turies (Istanbul: Isis Yaylnevi, 1992). For a critical evaluation of this field, see esp. Colin Heywood, "Between Historical Myth and Mythohistory: The Limits of Ottoman History," Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 12 (1988): 315-45; and for a more recent critique, see Fatma Acun, "Osmanh Tarihinin Genigleyen Sinirlan: Defteroloji," Tiirk Kiiltiirii incelemeleri Dergisi 1 (2000): 319-32. For another work that deals well with the major problems of defterological studies, see Mehmet Oz, XV-XVI. Yiizyillarda Canik Sancagi, (Ankara: TTK Basimevi, 1999). The number of monographical studies in local history for which these defters constitute the principal sources has increased substantially in the past two decades. These works have also contributed significantly to the development of complicated terminology and the problems of Ottoman demographic history. For the most important, see Michael A. Cook, Population Pressure in Rural Anatolia, 1450-1600 (London: Oxford University Press, 1972); Leyla Erder, "The Measurement of Pre-industrial Population Changes: The Ottoman Empire from the 15th to 17th Century," Middle Eastern Studies 11 (1979): 284-301; Leila Erder and Suraiya Faroqhi, "Population Rise and Fall in Anatolia, 1550-1620," Middle East Studies 15 (1979): 328-45; Bekir Kemal Ataman, "Ottoman Demographic History (14th-17th Centuries). Some Considerations," Journal ofEconomic and Social History of the Orient 35, 2 (1992): 187-98; Maria Todorova and Nikolai Todorov, "The Historical Demography of the Ottoman Empire: Problems and Tasks," in Scholar Patriot, Mentor: Historical Essays in Honor of Dimitrije Djordjevic, ed. Richard B. Spence and Linda L. Nelson (Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1992), 151-72. For a bibliographical essay on population movements in the Ottoman Empire, see Daniel Panzac, "La Population de l'Empire Ottoman et de ses Marges du XVe au XIXe Siecle: Bibliographie (1941-80) et Bilan Provisoire," Revue de l'accident Musulman et de la MWditerrande 31 (198 1):
119-37.
4See Barkan, "Ttirkiye'de imparatorluk Devirlerinin."
5The only exception to this in Turkey was Halil Inalcik's publication of the earliest extant register in the Ottoman archive, relating to Albanian lands. See Halil Inalclk, Hicri 835 Tarihli Suret-i Defter-i Sancak-i Arvanid (Ankara: TTK Basimevi, 1954).
6Nejat Gbytinq's XVI. Yiizyilda Mardin Tarihi (Istanbul: i. U. Edebiyat Faktiltesi Yayini, 1969; repr. Ankara: Tiurk Tarih Kurumu, 1991) deserves special mention here in that it was the first example of this kind of study in modern Turkey.
7Bruce McGowan, Economic Life in Ottoman Europe: Taxation, Trade, and Struggle for Land, 1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Linda Darling, Revenue Raising and Legitimacy: Tax Collection and Finance Administration in the Ottoman Empire, 1560-1660, (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996); Oktay Ozel, "Changes in Settlement Patterns, Population and Society in Rural Anatolia: A Case Study of Amasya, 1576-1642" (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Manchester, 1993); idem, "17. Yiizyll Osmanh Demografi ve Iskan Tarihi Igin Onemli bir Kaynak: 'Mufassal' Avariz Defterleri," XII. Tiirk Tarih Kongresi, Ankara, 12-16 Eylfil 1994, Kongreye Sunulan Bildiriler (Ankara: TTK Yaylni, 1999), 3:735-44. Here Machiel
Kiel deserves special mention for his works, each of which are among the most significant contributions to the field particularly in terms of the discussion of the problematic nature and utility of these sources. See his "Remarks on the Administration of the Poll Tax (Cizye) in the Ottoman Balkans and the Value of Poll Tax Registers (Cizye Defterleri) for Demographic Research," Etudes Balkaniques 4 (1990): 70-104; Ayni Yazar, "Anatolia Transplanted? Patterns of Demographic, Religious and Ethnic Changes in the District of Tozluk (N. E. Bulgaria), 1479-1873," Anatolica 17 (1991): 1-27; idem, "Hrazgrad-Hezargrad-Razgrad: The tudes of a Turkish Town in Bulgaria," Turcica 21-23 (1991).
8While the main objective of this study is not to discuss well-known but still little appreciated aspects of defterological studies, because of the nature of the sources and the question of the reliability of the data
they contain, I believe that it is imperative to remind the reader of the fact that all the arguments developed and discussed here are based on the records of the tax-paying population only, both rural and urban, whose status was well defined by law and regularly and systematically recorded with the utmost care in the survey registers. Other sectors of the society at large, including marginal groups such as gypsies, generally went unrecorded. Similarly, a certain portion of the peasantry might have not been recorded because of their particular services to the government, although we know that in most cases they were also included in the registers with a mention of their special status even if they were tax-exempt. Furthermore, a large portion of urban society-members of the military class, for example-were not subject to systematic survey. Despite all this, a regularly and systematically recorded portion of Ottoman society constitutes in itself an important database for historical demographic inquiry, allowing us to clearly follow the main population trends as well as certain aspects of demographic change. What follows is an example of this kind, of study, and like other such studies, it should be read with these limitations in mind. For a discussion of the subject, see Mehmet Oz, "Tahrir Defterlerinin Osmanli Tarihi Ara\unhboxgtirmalarmnda Kullanllmasi Hakkinda Bazi Diiptinceler," Vakiflar Dergisi 22 (1991): 509-37; Fikret Yilmaz, "16. Yiizyllda Edremit Kazasl" (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Ege University, Izmir, 1995), 192-205. On avariz and cizye registers, see Oktay Ozel, "Avariz ve Cizye Defterleri," in Osmanli Devleti'nde Bilgi ve Istatistik, ed. Halil inalclk and Sevket Pamuk (Ankara: DE, 2000),
33-50.
9Since it is unnecessary and practically impossible to give here a complete list of defterological studies that do not deal totally with population changes in the Ottoman Empire during the 16th century, I will refer only to those mentioned in n. 3. A relatively recent publication that discusses the relevant findings of these studies is Oz, Canik. See also Kemal (iqek, "Tahrir Defterlerinin Kullamminda Gtiriflen Bazi Problemler ve Metod Araylglarn," Tiirk Diinyast Arattirmalart 97 (1995): 93-111; inalclk, "Impact of the Annales School."
10Cook, Population Pressure.
"1Mustafa Akdag, Celali isyanlari, 1550-1603 (Ankara: Ankara Universitesi Yaylm, 1963). (For a later, extended version, see Celali Isyanlart. Tiirk Halklnin Dirlik ve Diizenlik Kavgasi (Istanbul: Bilgi Yayinevi,
1975). Idem, Tiirkiye'nin Iktisadi ve 4&timai Tarihi, 2 vols. (Istanbul: Tekin Yayinevi, 1971).
12See Halil inalclk, "Military and Fiscal Transformation in the Ottoman Empire, 1600-1700," Archivum Ottomanicum 6 (1980): 283-337; idem, "Impact of the Annales School," 80-83; Huricihan islamoglu-Inan, State and Peasant in the Ottoman Empire: Agrarian Power Relations and Regional Economic Development in Ottoman Anatolia during the Sixteenth Century (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994).
13inalclk, "Military and Fiscal Transformation"; islamoglu-inan, State and Peasant, 185. See also Suraiya Faroqhi, "Political Tension in the Anatolian Countryside around 1600: An Attempt at Interpretation," in Tiirkischhe Miszellen, Robert Anhegger Festschrift, Armagani, Melanges, ed. J. L. Bacque-Grammont et al. (Istanbul, 1987), 117-30.
14For the details of the first stage of the uprisings and the nature of the Celali rebellions in general, see William J. Griswold, The Great Anatolian Rebellion, 1000-1020/1591-1611 (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz, 1983); Karen Barkey, Bandits and Bureaucrats: The Ottoman Route to State Centralization (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994). 1 have already referred to M. Akdag's classic Celali isyanlart.
S5See, for example, McGowan, Economic Life in Ottoman Europe. See also Halil inalclk, "Adaletnameler," Belgeler 2, 3-4 (1965): 49-145; idem, "The Ottoman Decline and Its Effects upon the Reaya," in Aspects
of the Balkans, Continuity and Change: Contributions to the International Balkan Conference, University of California, Los Angeles 1969, ed. H. Birnbaum and S. Vryonis (The Hague: Mouton, 1972), 338-54. Suraiya Faroqhi, however, emphasizes the "political" nature of peasants' exodus from the villages under such conditions, thus expressing her doubt, apparently on the basis of the works of islamoglu-inan, about the role of a demographic pressure. See Suraiya Faroqhi, "Political Activity among Ottoman Taxpayers and the Problem of Sultanic Legitimation (1570-1650)," Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient 35 (1992):
38-39.
16inalcik, "Military and Fiscal Transformation." 17McGowan, Economic Life in Ottoman Empire.
1SMaria Todorova, "Was There a Demographic Crisis in the Ottoman Empire in the Seventeenth Century?" Etudes Balkaniques 2 (1988): 55-63.
19islamoglu-inan, State and Peasant, esp. chap. 4.
2(See, for example, Faroqhi, "Political Activity"; idem, "Crisis and Change, 1590-1699," in An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1914, ed. Halil Inalclk and Donald Quataert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 433-38; idem, "Seeking Wisdom in China: An Attempt to Make Sense
of the Celali Rebellions," in Zafar Name: Memorial Volume of Felix Tauer, ed. Rudolf Veselly and Eduard Gombar (Prague: Enigma Corporation, 1996), esp. 104.
21islamoglu-inan, State and Peasant, 149-54, 156.
22Ibid., 143, 146-48. Frequent movements of pastoral nomads and peasants from the less secure ern provinces to the western parts of the empire during the course of Ottoman history seem to be a torical fact. See Halil Inalclk, "Introduction: Empire and Population," in Inalclk and Quataert, Economic and Social History, 31 ff. However, we have no clear evidence of any significant migration taking place in the region in question in the period concerned. Furthermore, recent research has revealed that the high level of growth in population was the case not only in the western cities but also across Anatolia, in both urban and rural areas. See, for example, Ismet Miroglu, XVI. Yiizyllda Bayburd Sancagt (Istanbul, 1975); idem, Kemah ve Erzincan Kazasi (1520-1566) (Ankara: TTK Basimevi, 1990); Mehmet Ali Unal, XVI. Yiizyllda Harput Sancagt (1518-1566) (Ankara: TTK Basimevi, 1989); Orhan Khliq, XVI. Ve XVII, Yiizytllarda Van (1548-1648) (Van: Van Belediye Balkanllgi Ktilttir ve Sosyal Iller Miidtirltigti Yaylnlarl, 1997).
23islamoglu-Inan, State and Peasant, 143, 154.
24Ibid., 156. There are many problems in this argument. First, it is highly questionable to assume that entering the askeri class was a matter of "preference" for Ottoman peasants, given the strict rules delimiting such movements. Second, it seems to be chronologically premature to speak of the existence of such retinues composed of irregular soldiers within the Ottoman provincial-military organization under the timar system during the first three quarters of the 16th century, although Ciftbozan levend groups existed in the Ottoman countryside well before that century. The present level of our knowledge of such retinues suggests that it was instead a phenomenon of the years prior to or during the Celali movements at the turn of the 17th century. Third, speaking about the "drudgery of work" as a factor behind Anatolian peasants' leaving the land while rejecting apparent economic and demographic constraints of the period is not convincing. I will touch on these issues later. Cf. Barkey, Bandits and Bureaucrats, 150 ff.
25 Islamoglu-inan, State and Peasant, 156.
26See, for example, Oz, "Osmanh Klasik Diineminde Tarim"; Yunus Kog, "XVI. Yiizylhn Ikinci Yarisinda Kiylerin Parqalanmasi Sorunu: Bursa Kazasi Ol6eginde Bir Araltirma," unpublished paper presented at the Eighth Turkish Congress of History, Ankara, 4-8 October 1999. I thank Dr. Koq for permitting me to use this
paper.
27See Huricihan islamoglu-Inan, "M. A. Cook's Population Pressure in Rural Anatolia, 1450-1600: A Critique of the Present Paradigm in Ottoman History," Review of Middle East Studies 3 (1978?): 120-35. Islamoglu-Inan deals with the price rise in another article: see Huricihan Islamoglu and Suraiya Faroqhi, "Crop Patterns and Agricultural Production Trends in Sixteenth-Century Anatolia," Review 2, 3 (1978). For the problem of price increases in connection with population growth, see also Mustafa Akdag, "Osmanh Imparatorlugu'nun Kurulu?u ve Inkigafi Devrinde Tiirkiye'nin Iktisadi Vaziyeti," Belleten 13 (1949): 571. See also Omer Liutfi Barkan, "Price Revolution of the Sixteenth Century: A Turning Point in the Economic History of the Near East," International Journal of Middle East Studies 6, 1 (1975): 8-15. Cf. Inalcik, "Impact of the Annales School," 83 ff. The latest contribution to the discussion is from Sevket Pamuk, who re-evaluates the findings of Barkan and his interpretation of price movements in the Ottoman Empire: See Sevket Pamuk, "The Price Revolution in the Ottoman Empire Reconsidered," International Journal of Middle East Studies 33 (2001): 69-89.
28Islamoglu-Inan, State and Peasant, 149.
29As far as the later historiography is concerned, it was Karen Barkey who developed a systematic critique of Islamoglu-Inan's argument. Barkey argues that Islamoglu-Inan, along with inalclk, has overstated the role of "pull factors" in peasants' leaving their lands and emphasizes the impact of declining economic conditions and rapid growth in population-in the landless and unmarried population, in particular-in Anatolia during the 16th century: see Barkey, Bandits and Bureaucrats, 148 ff.
30See Oz, Canik; Ozel, "Changes."
31See Cook, Population Pressure, 25; Oz, "Tahrir Defterlerinin," 433, 436. Cf. Feridun Emecen, XVI. Asirda Manisa Kazast (Ankara: TTK Basimevi, 1989), 232-33.
32The proportion of landless peasant households to total households reached more than 50 percent in some nahiyes of the kaza of Amasya (Ozel, Changes, 75-76, 78). Note that these figures were reached via a detailed examination of the tax register of the region dated 1576 (TD 26, Kuyud-1 Kadime Archive, General Directorate of Deeds and Surveys, Ankara) and include neither those peasants recorded in the registers as "caba" (landless)